By her own admission, last year was the worst year of DeLaria’s life. “I broke up a 10-year relationship, and I felt like my career was going nowhere,” she says. “I didn’t know what had happened.” Then she met a new woman and was cast in Orange Is the New Black. “Now it’s the best year of my life.” She credits the Netflix show about a woman’s prison for helping “acceptance of butches” and for a more honest depiction of women in general: “It’s about having women look real.”

Photographed at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station in New York City on September 19, 2013